Field Service Transformation

BT employs thousands of field engineers across the UK to maintain networks, repair faults, and provide service to customers. To allocate work efficiently, BT developed Work Manager, an information system that automates work management and field communications. Working on the R&D side of BT Group, my team enhanced Work Manager with a dynamic scheduler (DS) based on a combination of heuristic search and AI reasoning. DS with Work Manager saved BT $150 million a year on operational costs. Following on the success of the programme, my team went on to develop a larger suite of tools including forecasting, planning, attendance management, appointment management, field mobile apps, etc. This became known as Field Optimisation Suite and was deployed to help launch BT Openreach and manage the growing demand for field resources in the context of delivering broadband and fibre customers across the UK. The programme won several awards from INFORMS, BCS, IET and others.